Run OSX Mavericks on a Dell Optiplex 780
This tutorial will describe the steps to install Mavericks on a Dell Optiplex 780 (this will also works on a 760).
The installation goes to the latest version of 10.9, and when there is a new update i will change the tutorial as soon as possible.
If you find any mistakes or have something to improve then please send me a PM and i will update the tutorial.

I have also included the PDF file of the guide and the zip file to install OSX Mavericks.

A special thanks goes to Brian from Tech Erra for using parts of their tutorial.

I am from The Netherlands so sorry for my bad English.

1. Credits/Sources
Everything OSx86-related is a collaborative effort amongst people who enjoy doing these things, as well as those of us who enjoy tweaking and experimenting with things. Below are a list of sources used to compile this guide:

Forum member Pingu from Germany for helping me out with the text changes.

And all other forum members who have posted in my topic and helping out the community.

2. Requirements
Here are the requirements:

A Dell Optiplex 780 – This is necessary to install OSX Mavericks for this tutorial

A copy of Mac OS X – This can be in the form of an existing hackintosh, a virtual machine within Windows or Linux, or even a regular Mac. If you don’t have any of these things, then find someone who can help you out for a while. I prefer using a hackintosh with OSX Mountain Lion.
Using an already working copy of Mac OS X either in a VM or a native hackintosh install is HIGHLY recommended.

A 8GB USB flash drive (or larger) – We’ll be copying the files to the drive appropriately, so make sure that you have a flash drive with enough storage space (8GB or larger).

A copy Mavericks 10.9 GM – If you don’t have a Mac Developer Account, then you’ll find torrents of 10.9 around the web.

30-60 minutes of time – Depending on how tech-savvy you are, this may be quick, or it may take a while.

An SSD or HDD to install 10.9 to – For me, I used a 500GB partition to install 10.9 to.

An PCI Express Video Card – For use with QE and CI Highly recommended. I use a Ati Radeon HD5450 1GB but 512MB or 2GB also works.

The first 3.kext files will fix most kernel panics en bios reset that you might experience while booting.
The 2 OSInstall files will allow you to install 10.9 onto an MBR-partitioned drive ( ! this is not tested, for further info go to insaneleymac forum !).

3. My Specs
My installation was successfully done on an Dell Optiplex 780 Desktop computer with the following specs.NOTE: A PCI video card is recommended to use the full potential of OSX Mavericks because the on board video card doesn't support QE/CI.

Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz

8GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM

Western Digital 500GB HDD

ATI RADEON HD5450 1GB

Intel WG82567LM onboard network

Bluetooth USB Cambridge silicon radio (works OOB)

ADI 1984A HDA audio onboard

HP W2207h Monitor 1680×1050 display

Apple Magic Trackpad

Apple Wireless Keyboard US

4. Preparing your SSD or HDD for install on a MBR-partitioned drive
If you intent to install OSX86 Mavericks on the same Hard disk as your windows follow the steps below.
For a clean install on a new formatted hard disk go to Chapter 5.
If you’re in Windows 7, you can easily make a new partition on an SSD or HDD via the Disk Management program.

Start>Run (or Windows key on your keyboard plus R).

diskmgmt.msc (press enter after typing that)

Find your drive, right-click on it, and go to Shrink Volume.

Wait for it to calculate the amount of space you can make your partition, and enter in your amount (for an exact GB amount, multiple your desired amount of GB times 1024, so a 20GB partition would be 20480MB).

Let it make your partition. It will show up as unallocated space.

Format the new unallocated space as NTFS and give it a label (mine was Mavericks).

For the destination, drag your USB drive from your desktop into the empty Destination box.

Click on “Restore” and type your password. This process will take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes depending on the speed of your flash drive.

When it’s finished, you’ll end up with 2 “Mac OS X Base System” drives on your desktop. Figure out which one is your USB copy (you can right-click > Get Info and use the capacity as an indicator), and rename it to MAVERICKSUSB, after that open it up.

Once you’ve opened up MAVERICKSUSB (the one that’s your flash drive), go to /System/Installation.

You’ll see a symlink for Packages. Remove it.

Create a folder called Packages.

Open up a window of the original Mac OS X Install ESD drive and copy everything within Packages to the empty Packages folder on your USB drive.

Done! 10.9 is now installed onto your USB drive. Now, we need to modify some of the files on it so that it will properly bootup on a PC.

7. Adding the fixed 10.9 files to the USB drive
Now, we need to modify some of the files on your USB drive so that it will properly bootup on your PC.

Open the folder “Instal109 - Kexts” on your Mac OS X desktop.

Copy 3 .kext files (FakeSMC.kext, NullCPUPowerManagement.kext, EliottForceLegacyRTC.kext) to /System/Library/Extensions on your flash drive.NOTE: The 2 OSInstall files will allow you to install 10.9 onto an MBR-partitioned drive, if you install it on the entire hard disk skip step 3 and 4 an go further with step 5.

Go to the root of your USB drive and create a folder called "Extra". This is used to store configuration files for the chameleon boot loader

Run the Chameleon installation package from Install - Utils. Make sure to install this package to your flash drive.

Choose in the Chameleon setup for Customize, in the customize screen choose Modules – FileNVRAM ( we need this to make iMessage work) after that go further with the install of Chameleon.

Run the Chameleon Wizard click the “SMBios” tab then click "Edit". Now there is a list of “Premade SMBioses”. Look through this list and choose for your Dell Optiplex 780 the iMac9.1.
Click “Save As” and save it to the /Extra folder we created on the USB stick.

Choose Tab Org.Chameleon.boot and set the follow options like in the image below.

If the settings are like the image then Click “Save As” and save it to the /Extra folder we created on the USB stick.

Copy mach_kernel from the Folder Install109 - Kernel and paste it into the root of your flash drive.

Lastly, copy extracted folder (Install109) which you have extracted earlier from the zip file to the root of your flash drive. You’ll need this in Chapter 12

Eject all mounted drives (this is not necessary)

Go to ShowHiddenFiles and click hide special files after that close program.

Eject your USB Drive

Done !

8. Bios Settings Dell Optiplex 780
Before we boot from the Dell Optiplex we need to optimize the bios for OSX Mavericks.

Start your Dell Optiplex and press F2 to get into the Bios.

Go to Boot Sequence and choose on the right for USB Device and click the up arrow so that the USB Device is on top, click on apply to make the setting.

Go then to Drives - Sata Operation and choose on the right for Raid Autodetect/AHCI click again on apply and choose exit, now the Bios is ready for installing OSX Mavericks.

9. Installing OSX Mavericks from your USB drive
Time for the fun stuff! We’ll now boot from your USB drive and install OSX Mavericks onto the partition or Hard Drive.

Boot from your USB drive.

Once in Chameleon let the boot loader resume (or hit enter to start it manually highlight your flash drive and add -v -f to the end, then push enter. You’ll see a lot of text fly by be patience startup may take a while.)

Once you get into the installer (assuming your computer didn’t freeze, restart itself, or get a kernel panic), choose your partition or Hard Disk to install OSX Mavericks to.

NOTE : when you install it on a partition skip step 5 - 10 see Chapter 4.
(If you install Mavericks on the entire Hard disk follow the steps below )

The installation process will take about 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the speed of both your USB drive and your SSD or HDD.

When finished boot to your new OSX Mavericks.

10. Booting OSX Mavericks!
Now that everything is finally prepared, you can go ahead and boot into OSX Mavericks.

Boot from your USB drive again your computer won't still be able to boot from the hard drive.

2. Once in Chameleon let the boot loader resume (or hit enter to start it manually highlight your flash drive and add -v -f to the end, then push enter. You’ll see a lot of text fly by be patience startup may take a while.)

You’ll eventually get to the setup screens for OSX Mavericks. Go through that process to setup OSX Mavericks.

Choose by "How Do You Connect" for "My Computer Does Not Connect to the Internet" we will fix this later in Chapter 12, go further with the installation process.

The installation process will take about 3 minutes.

Done! Proceed to Chapter 11 to install the bootloader to your partition so that you don’t have to rely on using your USB drive to bootup.

11. Installing the bootloader to 10.9

Once in 10.9 go to finder – preferences –General and choose in show these items on the desktop for
- Hard Disk
- External Disk
- CD

Go also to System Preferences – Security& Privacy click on the lock on the left corner and type your password

Go to AMDRadeonX3000.kext and rightclick and choose Show Package Contents and open info.plist with textedit.

Find <key>AMDCedarGraphicsAccelerator</key>
and then look for the first <key>IOPCIMatch</key> and add your string for HD5450
( HD5450 1GB the string is 0x68F91002 and for 512MB the string is 0x68E11002)
add <string>0x68F91002 0x68E01002</string>

Go to AMDRadeonX3000.kext and rightclick and choose Show Package Contents and open info.plist with textedit.

Find <key>AMDCedarGraphicsAccelerator</key>
and then look for the first <key>IOPCIMatch</key> and add your string for HD5450
( HD5450 1GB the string is 0x68F91002 and for 512MB the string is 0x68E11002)
add <string>0x68F91002 0x68E01002</string>

Save and Exit

Install both kext files with Kext Utility

Now reboot.

After Reboot go to about this Mac and check if the version is 10.9.2

The update is finished.

TROUBLESHOOTING14. BOOT 0 ERROR
If you are using a 4k HDD you can get boot:0 error, to solve this issue do the following

Reboot system back into Mavericks installer (USB)FLASH DRIVE).

Run Disk Utility find the Disk Identifier (eg. disk0s2).

Unmount the drive you installed Mavericks on

Launch Terminal and execute the following command:

dd if=/usr/standalone/i386/boot1h of=/dev/disk0s2

Exit Terminal

Boot Normally

15. App store and iCloud doesn't work
If AppStore and iCloud doesn't work follow the steps below.

Posted 24 October 2013 - 10:51 AM

Gingabyte

InsanelyMac Protégé

Members

8 posts

Have tried to install 10.9 several times using both a dmg taken from the app store download and also a developers GM release but when I boot from my usb stick and select my language I always get 'OS X Mavericks cannot be installed on this computer'

Posted 24 October 2013 - 11:19 AM

pepto

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

111 posts

Have tried to install 10.9 several times using both a dmg taken from the app store download and also a developers GM release but when I boot from my usb stick and select my language I always get 'OS X Mavericks cannot be installed on this computer'

Any Ideas? Thanks

What you can do is to Copy the OSInstall.mpkg file (in my zipfile Install109.zip in the directory OSInstall) to /System/Installation/Packages/, rename the file that’s already there and past it in the folder. After that boot again to your setup.

Posted 25 October 2013 - 07:58 AM

Gingabyte

InsanelyMac Protégé

Members

8 posts

Install now runs through to completion but if I boot to usb after that, then select my macos hdd with -v -f it gets stuck at the bluetooth message again. I have tried with and without a graphics card, used -x, GraphicsEnabler=No but nothing can get past that point

Posted 25 October 2013 - 10:26 AM

pepto

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

111 posts

Install now runs through to completion but if I boot to usb after that, then select my macos hdd with -v -f it gets stuck at the bluetooth message again. I have tried with and without a graphics card, used -x, GraphicsEnabler=No but nothing can get past that point

OK i have installed yesterday again and came with the same problem . I have fixed it i Will post the files tonight for you.

Posted 25 October 2013 - 04:47 PM

pepto

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

111 posts

Oke i am at home now i have attach the file in this post extract the extra folder to your root of your USB Install. After that boot from the USB Stick and it will work. If booting is ok go further with chapter 8 Preparing the files for USB but now you must do this to your HDD.

I will change this as soon as possible in my Tutorial. I hope this will help you.

Posted 28 October 2013 - 08:04 AM

pepto

InsanelyMac Geek

Members

111 posts

You need also both kext files the EliottForceLegacyRTC.kext is for bios reset and the fakesmc for The System Management Controller like fan control sleep and more system related hardware for intel base macs. But the sleep issue still exist on the dell 780.

Posted 28 October 2013 - 10:20 AM

Copied your new 'extra' folder to my usb stick, replaced the org.chameleon.boot.plist to add back in the boot options. Re ran the install and have manage to sucessfully install 10.9

I now seem to be having issues getting my 5450 512MB to work correctlyAMD5000Controller.kext - added 0x68e11002 into current stringAMDRadeonX3000.kext - added 0x68e11002 into current string under AMDCedarGraphicsAccelerator

Thanks for all the help! and the great guide

If you wanna know if the string is right go to system report and profile and watch yoor string at graphics it starts with 0x68e1, than look above for further string. Or make a screenshot of your system profile so i can see your graphic string for the HD5450.I am using a spapphire.